HOWARD FINE ACTING STUDIO
AUDITION INSTRUCTIONS AND SELECTIONS
FOR MALES APPLYING IN 2014 TO ENROL IN 2015
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PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY.!
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• Prepare two (2) monologues: The first one must be from the following selections
provided by the Studio. The second one can be your choice or it can also be from the
the Studio selections. (Your selection can be classic or contemporary, from any country,
playwright, etc., - anything you would like to do) !
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• Do the appropriate research and preparation for both monologues. It is strongly
suggested that you have read Howard Fine’s book FINE ON ACTING: A Vision of the
Craft in preparation for your audition.
• Bring extra copies of your monologues with the following information on the top of
each page: Your name, Title of play, playwright, role.
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• Please attach the monologues to your headshot & resume and bring this with you to
the audition.
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Remember - Preparation gives you freedom.
We look forward to seeing your audition.
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Thank you.
Howard Fine Acting Studio - Australia
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THE LIBERTINE by Stephen Jeffreys
ROCHESTER:
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Allow me to be frank at the commencement: you will not like me. No, I say you will
not. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled. You will not like
me now and you will like me a good deal less as we go on. Oh yes, I shall do things
you will like. You will say ‘That was a noble impulse in him’ or ‘He played a brave part
there,’ but DO NOT WARM TO ME, it will not serve. When I become a BIT OF A
CHARMER that is your danger sign for it prefaces the change into THE FULL REPTILE a
few seconds later. What I require is not your affection but your attention. I must not
be ignored or you will find me as troublesome a package as ever pissed in the
Thames.
Now. Ladies. An announcement. I am up for it. All the time. That’s not a boast. Or an
opinion. It is bone hard medical fact. I put it around, d’y know? And you will watch
me putting it around and sigh for it. Don’t. It is a deal of trouble for you and you are
better off watching and drawing your conclusions from a distance than you would be
if I got my arse pointing up your petticoats.
Gentlemen. Do not despair, I am up for that as well. When the mood is on me. And the
same warning applies. Now, gents: if there be wizards in the house, jades, harlots (as
how could there not be) leave them be for the moment. Still your cheesy erections till
I have had my say. But later when you shag – and later you will shag, I shall expect it
of you and I will know if you have let me down – I wish you to shag with my
homuncular image rattling in your gonads. Feel how it was for me, how it is for me
and ponder. ‘Was that shudder the same shudder he sensed? Did he know something
more profound? Or is there some wall of wretchedness that we all batter with our
heads at that shinning, livelong moment.’
That is it. That is my prologue, nothing in rhyme, certainly no protestations of
modesty, you were not expecting that I trust. I reiterate only for those who have
arrived late or were buying oranges or were simply not listening: I am John Wilmot,
Second Earl of Rochester and I do not want you to like me.
FOOL FOR LOVE by Sam Shepard
EDDIE
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And we walked right through town. Past the donut shop, past the miniature
golf course, past the Chevron station. And he opened the bottle up and
offered it to me. Before he even took a drink, he offered it to me first. And I
took it and drank it and handed it back to him. And we just kept passing it
back and forth like that as we walked until we drank the whole thing dry. And
we never said a word the whole time. Then, finally, we reached this little
white house with a red awning, on the far side of town. I’ll never forget the
red awning because it flapped in the night breeze and the porch light made it
glow. It was a hot, desert breeze and the air smelled like new cut alfalfa. We
walked right up to the front porch and he rang the bell and I remember
getting real nervous because I wasn’t out for a expecting to visit anybody. I
thought we were just out for a walk. And then this woman comes to the door.
This real pretty woman with red hair. And she throws herself into his arms.
And he starts crying. He just breaks down right there in front of me. And she’s
kissing him all over the face and holding him real tight and he’s just crying
like a baby.
And then through the doorway, behind them both. I see this girl. She just
appears. She’s just standing there, staring at me and I’m staring back at her
and we can’t take our eyes off each other. It was like we knew each other
from somewhere but we couldn’t place where. But the second we saw each
other, that very second, we knew we’d never stop being in love.
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THE SEAGULL by Anton Chekhov
KONSTANTIN TREPLEV
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(Picking the petals from a flower) She loves me - she loves me not, she loves me - she
loves me not, she loves me – she loves me not. (last petal) See – my mother doesn’t
love me. Why should she? She’s desperate to believe she’s still the same woman she
was a decade ago - the star of her day – but all of a sudden I’m twenty-five – the
hard-to-hide evidence that she’s no longer very young. When I’m not around she’s still
forty-something, but when I am around, she’s joined the over-fifty club and she hates
me for it.
Plus she knows I think theatre’s dead. A middle-class mausoleum. She still believes in
it, of course. Says she loves it – even imagines it serves a function – that she actually
has some effect on people’s lives. She can’t see that it’s a dead form that people only
cling to out of nostalgia. It’s got nothing to do with reality. With being alive now. May
as well be television – it’s equally as banal, deadly and meaningless. All we ever get is
the same sentimental, self-congratulatory shit masquerading as reality. Or
secondhand ideas dressed up as cutting fucking edge. When I see actors on stage
pretending to be real – pretending to eat, drink, walk, talk, love – wear jackets – I
want to scream: STOP. STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME FEEL YOUR FAKE FEELINGS. STOP
TRYING TO TRICK ME. STOP TREATING ME LIKE A CHILD. YOUR REALITY IS NOT MY
REALITY. YOUR DEAD WORLD IS NOT MY WORLD. When I see the same clichés – the
same reheated lies over and over – I want to run screaming from the theatre and bury
myself in life.
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DEATH OF A SALESMAN by Arthur Miller
Act 2
BIFF
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Now hear this, Willy, this is me.
You know why I had no address for three months? I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was
jailed. I stole myself out of every good job since high school. And I never got
anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders
from anybody! That's whose fault it is! It's goddamn time you heard that! I had to be
boss big shot in two weeks, and I'm through with it!
Willy! I ran down eleven flights with a pen in my hand today. And suddenly I stopped,
you hear me? And in the middle of that office building, do you hear this? I stopped in
the middle of that building and I saw - the sky. I saw the things that I love in the
world. The work and the food and the time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen
and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become
what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous,
begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I
know who I am! Why can't I say that, Willy?
Pop! I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you! I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither
are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ashcan like all the rest of them! I'm one dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and
couldn't raise it! A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I'm not bringing home
any prizes any more, and you're going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!
Pop, I'm nothing! I'm nothing, Pop. Can't you understand that? There's no spite in it
any more. I'm just what I am, that's all. Will you let me go, for Christ's sake? Will you
take that phoney dream and burn it before something happens?
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THE MATCHMAKER by Thornton Wilder
CORNELIUS
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Isn't the world full of wonderful things.
There we sit cooped up in Yonkers for years and years and all the time wonderful
people like Mrs Molloy are walking around in New York and we don't know them at all.
I don't know whether - from where you're sitting - you can see - well, for instance, the
way (pointing to the edge of his right eye) her eye and forehead and cheek come
together, up here. Can you? And the kind of fireworks that shoot out of her eyes all
the time.
I tell you right now: a fine woman is the greatest work of God. You can talk all you
like about Niagara Falls and the Pyramids; they aren't in it at all. Of course, up there
at Yonkers they came into the store all the time, and bought this and that, and I said
"Yes, ma'am", and "That'll be seventy-five cents, ma'am"; and I watched them. But
today I've talked to one, equal to equal, equal to equal, and to the finest one that
ever existed, in my opinion.
They're so different from men! Everything that they say and do is so different that you
feel like laughing all the time. Golly, they're different from men. And they're awfully
mysterious, too. You never can be really sure what's going on in their heads. They
have a kind of wall around them all the time - of pride and a sort of play-acting: I bet
you could know a woman a hundred years without ever being really sure whether she
liked you or not.
This minute I'm in danger. I'm in danger of losing my job and my future and everything
that people think is important; but I don't care. Even if I have to dig ditches for the
rest of my life, I'll be a ditch-digger who once had a wonderful day.
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BOYS LIFE by Howard Korder
Act 1, Scene 6
PHIL
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I would have destroyed myself for this woman. Gladly. I
would have eaten garbage. I would have sliced my wrists
open. Under the right circumstances, I mean, if she said,
"Hey, Phil, why don't you just cut your wrists open," well,
come on, but if seriously ... We clicked, we connected on
so many things, right off the bat, we talked about God for
three hours once, I don't know what good it did, but that
intensity ... and the first time we went to bed, I didn't
even touch her. I didn't want to, understand what I'm
saying? And you know, I played it very casually, because, all
right,
I’ve had some rough experiences, I'm the first to admit,
but after a couple of weeks I could feel we were right
there, so I laid it down, everything I wanted to tell her,
and ... and she says to me ... she says ... "Nobody should
ever need another person that badly." Do you believe that?
"Nobody should ever ... "! What is that? Is that something
you saw on TV? I dump my heart on the table, you give me
Joyce Dr. Fucking Brothers? "Need, need," I'm saying I love
you, is that wrong? Is that not allowed anymore?
And so what if I did need her? Is that so bad? All right,
crucify me, I needed her! So what! I don't want to be by
myself, I'm by myself I feel like I'm going out of my mind, I
do. I sit there, I'm thinking forget it, I'm not gonna make it
through the next ten seconds, I just can't stand it. But I do,
somehow, I get through the ten seconds, but then I have to
do it all over again, cause they just keep coming, all
these ... seconds, floating by, while I'm waiting for
something to happen, I don't know what, a car wreck, a
nuclear war or something, that sounds awful but at least
there'd be this instant when I'd know I was alive. Just
once. Cause I look in the mirror, and I can't believe I'm
really there. I can't believe that's me. It's like my body,
right, is the size of, what, the Statue of Liberty, and I'm
inside it, I'm down in one of the legs, this gigantic hairy
leg, I'm scraping around inside my own foot like some tiny
fetus. And I don't know who I am, or where I'm going. And I
wish I'd never been born. (Pause.)
Not only that, my hair is falling out, and that really sucks.
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FAT PIG by Neil LaBute
CARTER
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Dude, I understand. Like, totally.
I used to walk ahead of her in the mall or, you know, not tell her stuff at school so
there wouldn’t be, whatever. My own mom. I mean … I’m fifteen and worried about
every little thing, and I’ve got this fucking sumo wrestler in a housecoat trailing
behind me. That’s about as bad as it can get! I’m not kidding you. And the thing was, I
blamed her for it. I mean, it wasn’t like a disease or like some people have, thyroid or
that type of deal … she just shovelled shit into her mouth all the time, had a few kids,
and, bang, she’s up there at 350, maybe more. It used to seriously piss me off.
My dad was always working late … golfing on weekends, and I knew it was because of
her. It had to be! How’s he gonna love something that looks like that, get all sexy with
her?
I’m just a kid at the time, but I can remember thinking that. Yeah, it’s whatever, but
… this once, in the grocery store, we’re at Albertsons and we’re pushing four baskets
around – you wanna know how humiliating that shit is? – and I’m supposed to be at a
game by seven, I’m on JV, and she’s just farting around in the candy isle, picking up
bags of “fun size” Snickers and checking out the calories. Yeah. I mean, what is that?!
So, I suddenly go off on her, like, this sophomore in high school, but I’m all screaming
in her face … “Don’t look at the package, take a look in the mirror, you cow! PUT ‘EM
DOWN!” Holy shit, there’s stock boys – bunch of guys I know, even – are running down
the isle. Manager stumbling out of his glass booth there, the works.
But you know what? She doesn’t say a word about it. Ever. Not about the swearing,
the things I called her, nothing. Just this, like, one tear I see … as we’re sitting at a
stoplight on the way home. That’s all.
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THE MAN WHO COULDN’T DANCE by Jason Katims
ERIC
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I don't know why I can't dance. But it’s - I can't. I can't make my body move in these
ways that the music is demanding that I move. It's just so goddamn embarrassing. The
situation. I mean, standing in public around hundreds of people who are displaying
their purist, truest selves. I mean, it takes them no more than two drinks and their
souls are out there on the dance floor. Their goodness. Their sensuality. They're
sharing and loving. I watch that, look at that. But my body fights it. I start to analyze
the music. The rhythm. The time signature. I understand the theory of dancing. The
idea of spontaneously sharing in this moment that exists now and only now. The give
and take with your partner. Two mirrors on a land where gravity holds you to this
point and then leaves you free. And that the universe happens right there and then.
Like, truth. I understand this intellectually. But Gail, I never have experienced it. I
can't dance.
Because it was the dam holding the water. If I let that out. That one thing, everything
would follow. I couldn't dance. I couldn't have a normal talk about the weather with a
neighbour without getting into a conversation about God, love and eternity. I mean,
after all, the weather has these huge connotations. I couldn't act correctly in social
situations. I couldn't sacrifice truth for a relationship. I couldn't hold you when you
needed to be held because I wanted you to be stronger. Because I wanted to be
stronger. I couldn't ask you for the warmth of your touch out of need. I couldn't let
myself. I would only ask for your touch out of strength. Out of something that
wouldn't become sick and interdependent and symbiotic. I wasn't able to do these
things.
I don't know, Gail. I mean, you marrying Fred didn't really say anything to me. It was
like something in this continuum. This cycle. I mean, it was this thing that happened
in my life. The love of my life got married to another man. It didn't seem permanent.
But the fact that Elizabeth ... The fact that this angel ... this unbelievable gift isn't
mine. And will never be mine. This is killing me.
HOME FRONT by James Duff
JEREMY
Yes, I do have friends. One of them was named Brady. Brady was
my friend. From Mobile, Alabama. We were a lot alike, Brady and
me. He was drafted, just like I was. Came from the same kind of
family, I think, nice people. We were both getting ready to come
home about the same time. And a month before we were
supposed to get out, Brady got wounded. And when he left the
hospital, this was in California, when he got out of the hospital,
he called his parents, you know, to say he was on his way and
would they mind if he brought a friend home with him. He had
met him in the hospital or something, I don't know. And his
mother said fine. Then Brady, he said, this guy's gonna need a
little help because he doesn't move around very well yet, and his
mother asked what was wrong with him, and Brady said he's lost
an arm and a leg; he’s probably going to need a little help.
Well. His mother just lost it. I mean, she couldn't handle that at
all. So she put his father on the phone and his father really gave
it to him. How could you do something like this to us? That's what
he said. His father. Don't you know how much we've been looking
forward to this? Why are you trying to ruin everything for us?
Brady apologized and when he got off the phone, he went and
checked into a Holiday Inn and hung himself in the bathroom.
They shipped the body to Mobile. I've tried to picture the
expression on his parents’ faces when they went to pick up Brady
at the airport. The expression on their faces when they saw their
little soldier boy was missing an arm and a leg.
So. I don't go along. I don't care about any of it anymore.
And you can take your social responsibility and your traditional
values and shove them up your ass. I'm a survivor. And I got that
way by not giving a shit over things that are not worth giving a
shit over.
And if that's too much for you to handle, then too fucking bad.
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KEY EXCHANGE by Kevin Wade
Act I, Scene 4
PHILIP
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So great. So we get keys made for each other’s apartments. So then you know what
happens? I’ll tell you what happens. Maybe one night I’m at a party, a bar, whatever,
and I met a girl, and right off we know it’s a mutual attraction situation, and we have
a little chat and a drink maybe, and next thing you know we’re in a cab, and there’s a
physical thing that’s happening, and we’re chewing each other’s faces and trying to
decide where to go, you know, your place or mine, only hold the phone here, there is
no decision to be made, because you’ve got a key to my place, and I don’t know if
you’ve dropped by or what, and I don’t want to chance putting either you or me in
that awkward situation, so it’s off to her place somewhere in the East Eighties where
I’ve got to climb over her two roommates and three cats to do it on a foam mattress
on the floor real, real quiet like because Sally my roommate has a commercial callback at nine-thirty in the morning and this whole time I’m having some resentment
towards you because your having a key meant that it had to be the cats and the floor
and Sally the roommate asleep or nothing.
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KEY EXCHANGE by Kevin Wade
Act I, Scene 5
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MICHAEL
If you really want to know, married life sucks. My wife left me.
The composer. The guy she’s been working with. He tells her he can’t help himself.
And she can’t help herself. So they’re out there somewhere helping themselves.
I can’t believe it. We’re in bed. I’m trying to get something started, and she up and
turns on the light and starts to cry and says we’ve got to talk. “There’s this man,
Michael. You’ve met him. Eric. The musician. I don’t know how this happened. I have,
we have feelings for each other. I’ve been trying to rationalize them away, pressure
from the wedding, the intimacy of working together, but I can’t. I’m with you now,
but I’m thinking about him, and that’s not fair to either of us. I can’t sneak around on
you. I have to figure out what I’m doing. I can’t just live in this limbo.” Then we’re in
the bathroom, and she’s putting all her makeup and shit into a bag, and she’s telling
me that it’s nothing I’ve done, this Eric guy is totally different, they connect on a
whole other level. I still can’t believe it. She starts to pack up her diaphragm and
jelly, and I say can’t you hold off on the fucking until you know a little better just
what the fuck you are doing? And she says physical attraction is part of what’s
between them, and it’s her body. We fight. She’s really crying hard now, and she goes
back into the bedroom.
I see the tube of diaphragm jelly lying next to the sink. I’m nuts, you know, I’m really
crazy. I empty the tube of jelly into the toilet, take my tube of muscle liniment, hold
the two tubes nozzle to nozzle, and fill up the jelly tube with Tiger Balm.
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THIS IS OUR YOUTH by Kenneth Lonergan
Act 2
WARREN
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I don’t really get what you’re upset about. I thought we had a really good time
together and I was actually in a fairly Up state of mind for once.
Well, I didn’t mean that in any kind of lascivious way, so I don’t know why you want to
take it like that. I really like you.
I’m sorry I said anything to Dennis. I definitely caved in to the peer pressure. But I
also definitely said as little as possible and was totally respectful of you in the way I
talked about you. Even though I was pretty excited about what happened last night,
and also about like, maybe like, the prospect of like, I don’t know, like going out with
you – Which I would be very into, if you were. But if you want to think the whole
meant nothing to me, then go ahead because that’s not the case.
It’s totally weird, like, taking all your clothes off and having sex with someone you
barely know, and then being like “What’s up now?” You know? Like it’s such an intense
experience but then nobody knows what to fuckin’ say, even though nothing really
bad actually happened. You know?
I really like you… I don’t really agree with most of your opinions…but I don’t meet a
lot of people who can actually make me think, you know? And who can hold their own
in an interesting discussion. And who I’m totally hot for at the same time. You know?
It’s a fairly effective combination.
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THIS IS OUR YOUTH by Kenneth Lonergan
Act 2
DENNIS
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I think I went too far with her before. But I can’t even deal with it right now. I’m too
freaked out. I just can’t believe this, man, it’s like so completely bizarre. And it’s not
like I even liked the guy that much, you know? I just knew him. You know? But if we
had been doing those speedballs last night we could both be dead now. Do you
understand how close that is? I mean… It’s death. Death. It’s so incredibly heavy, it’s
like so much heavier than like ninety-five percent of the shit you deal with in the
average day that constitutes your supposed life, and it’s like so totally off to the side
it’s like completely ridiculous. I mean that was it. That was his life. Period.
The life of Stuart. A fat Jew from Long Island with a grotesque accent who sold drugs
and ate steak and did nothing of note like whatsoever.
I don’t know, man. I’m like, high on fear. I feel totally high on fear. I’m like – I don’t
even know what to do with myself. I wanna like go to cooking school in Florence, or
like go into show business. I could so totally be a completely great chef it’s like
ridiculous. Or like an actor or like a director. I should totally direct movies, man, I’d
be genius at it. Like if you take the average person with the average sensibility or
sense of humor or the way they look at the world and what thoughts they have or
what they think, and you compare it to the way I look at shit, there’s just like no
comparison at all. I could totally make movies, man, I would be like one of the
greatest movie makers of all time. Plus I am like so much better at sports than anyone
I know except Wally and those big black basketball plays, man, but I totally played
with those guys and completely earned their respect, and Wally was like, “Denny,
man, you are the only white friend I have who I can take uptown and hang out with
my friends and not be embarrassed.” Because I just go up there and hang out with
them and like get them so much more stoned than they’ve ever been in their life and
like am completely not intimidated by them at all. You know?
I’m high on fear, man. I am completely stoned out of my mind on fear. And like you
guys think I’m like totally confident and on top of it, but it’s not true at all. My
fuckin’ mother is so fuckin’ harsh and wildly extreme that I just got trained to snap
back twice as hard the minute anybody starts to fuck with me.
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THIS IS OUR YOUTH by Kenneth Lonergan
Act 2
WARREN
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It is sort of amazing that one of us actually died. You know? (Pause.) It’s like my Dad’s
always saying, “Do you know how bad you guys would have to fuck up before anything
really serious ever happened to you? (Pause). You and all your friends from the Upper
West Side who went to that fuckin’ school where they think it’s gonna cripple you for
life if they teach you how to spell? (Pause.) Do you know what happens to other kids
who do the kind of shit you guys do? They die, man. And the only different between
you and them is my money… It’s like a big fuckin’ safety net, but you can’t stretch if
too far, man, because your sister fell right through it.” (Pause.) But the fact is, he’s
just so freaked out of his mind that he did so well, and it all blew up in his face
anyway. Like he did this great enterprising thing for himself and his family, and made
a fortune in this incredibly tough racket, and got a house on the Park without any help
from anyone, and he never felt bad for anyone who couldn’t do the same thing. But
when he was at the height of this powers, he totally lost control of his own daughter,
and she ended up getting beaten to death by some guy from the world next door to
us. And there was nothing he could do about it. (Pause.) So…for the last nine years,
he’d been trying to literally pound his life back into shape. But it’s not really going
too well, because he’s totally by himself. (Pause.) You know?